Compare & contrast 4 countries using the majority and proportional system including their advantages and disadvantages - Essay Example

The Majority System and Proportional System Name: Institutional affiliation: Comparing and Contrasting the Majority System and the Proportional System All democracies are said to have legislatures elected in at least free and fair elections. Electoral systems have many consequences concerning what form of government a nation will have…

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Next is the proportional system this involves matching the share of seats which have been won with the share of votes won with an exemption of few parties according to LeDuc, Niemi, and Norris (2010). In comparing the majority system for both United Kingdom and United States of America, for one, they both apply single-member plurality. To win a certain seat a candidate should have more votes compared to others. The main idea here is plurality of votes. In both countries as far as the system is concerned, there is particular share of the vote needed to win under single-member district. The election is usually a series of personal races no matter how many districts there are. In the proportional electoral system in both United Kingdom and United States, there is matching of the share of seats that have been won. In both countries proportional system rewards diverse preferences. Also groups of different opinions are able to combine forces to get the pluralism required for victory. In the United Kingdom the legislature which is elected through the majority system is unicameral with the House of Lords having little power while in United States it is bicameral. In the United Kingdom, the constitution can be amended by a simple majority who are in the House of Commons while in United States of America amendments are done by majority in the legislature. In the United Kingdom there are no judicial reviews while in the USA, there is a judicial review which separates the court from the president and the congress. In UK there is concentration of power in the upper house while in the US, there is power separation with the executive being independent from the legislature. As noted by LeDuc, Niemi, and Norris (2010), majority systems are highly used in Australia and France. In both cases, the electoral system uses the majority electoral formula. In both countries the system is based on the single member districts, hereby the successful candidate is one with the majority number of votes. The two countries also use the dual ballot which is a used for presidential elections. There are two main types of majority electoral system that is, runoff system and as well the alternative vote. Australia usually uses the alternative vote option. The alternative vote requires voters to rank all the candidates who were running in the election and then the one with highest average score wins. The system requires a lot of thinking on the part of the voters as they have to develop an opinion about each and every candidate. In contrast, France employs the runoff-plurality system which allows more than two candidates in the second round during the dual balloting. In proportional representation, there is an attempt to convert parties’ share of vote to almost a proportional share of the seats in the legislature. Both Australia and France use the party list system whereby political parties prepare a list of candidates well ranked with as many of the candidates as there are seats in the legislature. The advantages of the majority system One advantage of the majority system is that small parties do not get chance to win unless some constituencies have population with different views from the rest of the country. The advantage here is that those with different views are represented. Furthermore, the majority system leads to parties forming blocks until there remain two major players in the
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